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Abbott flees Thomson, Labor defends tax

Paul Osborne, AAP Senior Political Writer

Extraordinary scenes of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott trying to flee the lower house have dominated parliament, as the government began a new defence of its carbon pricing regime a month out from its start date.

The startling vision of Mr Abbott and manager of coalition business Christopher Pyne making a run for it happened in the first minutes of a chaotic day in Canberra when the opposition tried to distance itself from the "tainted" vote of suspended Labor MP Craig Thomson.

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey had asked for more time to scrutinise the government's decision to raise the debt ceiling to $300 billion.

But when Labor moved to gag Mr Hockey, independent Mr Thomson - who has been investigated for the misuse of union credit cards when an officer of the Health Services Union - decided to vote for the first time with the coalition.

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Seeing Mr Thomson move towards the coalition benches, Mr Pyne tipped off Mr Abbott and the pair of them bolted for the door of the chamber.

While Mr Pyne made it out, Mr Abbott - who has vowed never to accept Mr Thomson's "tainted vote" while he sits on the cross benches - did not and his vote registered alongside the member for Dobell's.

Mr Thomson voted a further three times with the coalition, later telling AAP that as an independent he would never support gag motions because they impeded free speech.

Mr Abbott said the coalition had effectively "not accepted" Mr Thomson's vote because Mr Pyne had left the chamber.

He told reporters: "As soon as it became apparent the government was pulling this stunt Christopher Pyne and I absented ourselves from the chamber, so we did not accept the tainted vote."

Asked about vision showing he was still in the chamber and the Hansard record of his vote: Mr Abbott said: "I'm not going to go into the precise details of who was what and where ..."

Deputy Speaker Anna Burke told parliament there was no such thing as a tainted vote.

"There is no ability for the parliament to exclude a members' vote," she said.

However, a party can argue it does not accept an MPs vote even though it would still be counted in the parliament.

Mr Thomson denied being put up by Labor to vote with the opposition.

Later in question time, Treasurer Wayne Swan made a mockery of the opposition frontbench - three of whom were sent out of the chamber for misbehaviour hours after the Abbott incident.

"It was like the Three Stooges were back in play again, stumbling and bumbling around the corner of the house, running away from the people of Australia," Mr Swan said.

Under sustained attack over the government's carbon tax, Prime Minister Julia Gillard opened a new line of attack on the opposition over the impost that comes into effect on July 1.

"He might be able to run but he won't be able to hide," she shot across the chamber at Mr Abbott.

Unusually, the Labor side asked many of its own questions about the carbon tax.

This allowed government ministers to talk about the compensation package for families and pensioners and reject opposition linkages of the tax to job losses and higher petrol and energy prices.

Ms Gillard said the coalition's anti-carbon tax campaign was a "complete fraud".